As China is returning to business as usual, our latest project Flight Gallery in Shanghai Science & Technology Museum was signed-off yesterday. HKD business partner Mrs Lily Yu (second from the right in the picture), successfully presented our design scheme to the curator and consultant experts. The Flight Gallery is one of the museum’s refurbishment projects. It will replace the current Space Gallery located on the third floor. The 1,550 sqm exhibition area features a full scale Ford Trimotor aircraft replica and the latest Comac C919 technology. The renovation is due to start next year and the new gallery opens in 2023.

Looking out to the horizon from Marine Studios we can see a storm coming, and we need something to look forward to. So we’re creating Back & Fill, a one-off festival for interesting times, inspired by the currents of seaside life. Celebrating Margate’s resilience, it’s programmed to happen at the end of what looks like being a tough summer season. By creating a network that supports artists and makers, independent shops, small arts venues and seaside tourism businesses, it’ll practically demonstrate the power of arts led regeneration. We’ve called it Back & Fill because that’s a sailing term, for using the advantage of the tide being with you when the wind is not. That seemed to be about right, for where we are now. Back & Fill is being created with an open source toolkit, which we’ll make available to any seaside town wanting to create their own festival. We’ll provide a framework, tools to engage audiences, logos and branding, and deliver some online training films based on our combined fifty years of programming seaside festivals in Margate and Worthing (between us, we have made things like GEEK, Worthing Art Trail and Open Houses, and Pushing Print). Back & Fill will happen in the autumn school holiday, between 23rd October and 1st November 2020 (if we’re still in crisis, the backup date is February 2021). Want to know more? Drop us an email wave@marinestudios.co.uk, and tell us what you have programmed or planned for that week, or what you’re postponing now and might want to reschedule. Or tell us what you’d like to make just for Back & Fill. We’re talking to funders, but we have no confirmed funding yet, so if you want to put some money in our fighting fund that’d be great. We’ll be in touch soon with more news! Look forward to hearing from you. All the best

After running First Fridays for 10 years at the studio, we’ve been taking stock and thinking about fresh ways to deliver them. During this season of social distancing, First Fridays will go digital. For our first offering, we bring you our SELECTION OF PLAYFUL LEARNING – museums, heritage and arts resources. Whether you’re suddenly homeschooling your children, or looking for stimulating ways to entertain yourself during lockdown, we hope there’s something here for you. Firstly, Google Arts and Culture has a wealth of DIGITAL MUSEUM TOURS and online exhibitions. Why not visit a museum on the other side of the planet? For example, MASP – Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand – contains over 8,000 works in various media from a wide range of periods and all over the world. —————— Website link: Google Arts and Culture Closer to home, Firstsite in Colchester is launching ARTIST ACTIVITY PACKS with some of the UK’s best-known contemporary artists. The packs are free to download and no special materials are needed. —————— Website link: Firstsite Down the coast from us, Hastings Contemporary is sharing CREATIVE MINDFULNESS RESOURCES for children and adults. All you need is a pencil or pen and something to draw on. —————— Website link: CREATIVE MINDFULNESS RESOURCES The Getty Museum artworks challenge invites you to RECREATE FAMOUS ARTWORKS using objects and people in your home. The creations people are sharing will bring a much-needed smile to your face. —————— Twitter link: RECREATE FAMOUS ARTWORKS Similarly, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford has started #isolationcreations. This challenge on Twitter presents a different object from their collection each day and invites you to make and SHARE YOUR OWN CREATION inspired by it. —————— Twitter link: Ashmolean Museum The Ashmo (as it’s known locally) also features in the first of a SERIES OF QUIZZES in the Guardian set by museums. —————— Website link: Guardian If VIDEOGAMES are more your thing, check out the National Videogames Museum website, which has a great selection of activities for kids and big kids, such as CREATE YOUR OWN PIXELART CREATION. We’re big fans of play and this looks right up our street! —————— Website link: National…

HKD has been awarded the design contract to masterplan the redevelopment of Winchester Science Centre and is designing the first phase of interpretative design, along with build contractors TMP. Winchester Science Centre and Planetarium, an independent educational charity on a mission to excite children in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM), is set to relaunch its visitor experience in July 2020, having successfully secured full funding for a £1.1m redevelopment plan Inspiring Science for All. “We share the Science Centre’s ambition to create inclusive experiences.” said Kate Kneale, Director of HKD. “We bring a creative multi-disciplinary team to the project, with vast experience in delivering major exhibitions and interactive experiences. We were excited by the challenge set by the Science Centre, to create an accessible, multi-sensory exhibition and experience that would delight its visitors and spark their curiosity in STEM. Our design is as much about visitor wellbeing as it is about their interaction and learning experience.” Ben Ward says the initial concept designs presented by HKD delivered on ‘wow’ and pushed the boundaries of the project in a really exciting and unexpected way. “We had identified the areas for development but HKD responded with the total reordering and design of the upper floor and we loved it. The repositioning of the Invention Studio to the far corner of the building has created a seamless link to the outside, and all the exciting possibilities this brings. They’ve introduced a central live science demo area which can be viewed from both the upper and lower level, adding drama and surprise to every visit. This isn’t a new exhibition, it’s a relaunch of our Science Centre!”

Last week, Royal College of Arts students, from multiple disciplines, returned to Margate to present their interactive exhibition ‘UNEARTH THE UNREAL: What You See is Not What You Get’ following a workshop session with us at our home, Marine Studios. Huge congratulations to all the students who presented a wide range of interpretations, all thought provoking, some beautiful, some funny. Using mechanical, digital, sensory techniques to demonstrate a number of ideas and narratives, we we very excited by what they all do next. Keep up the good work Teams Apple, Raspberry, Lemon and Grape!

Last week, Royal College of Arts students, from multiple disciplines, visited Margate to present and test their ideas for an elective, culminating in an interactive exhibition called ‘What You See is Not What You Get’ that will take place on Thurs 28 November at Marine Studios. The RCA elective combines practice and theory investigating what links human physical and mental perceptions, and how ways of seeing leave us susceptible to illusions. An empirical journey into self-understanding and into audience. Students tested their ideas to date, to tutor Dr Carol MacGillivray and HKD director Kate Kneale. We look forward to seeing the end results soon at the exhibition UNEARTH THE UNREAL. Thursday 28.11.19, 6-8pm

We’re very excited to be the exhibit designers for the major refurbishment project of one of Southampton’s most important buildings – God’s House Tower. The historic gateway into Old Southampton is open once again. Telling the stories of this extraordinary site through a mixture of interactive exhibit design and artist responses, there are some beautiful, fascinating and challenging moments in the tower as you progress through four floors. See our project page for more info.

HKD celebrated their 10th birthday in their seaside home – Marine Studios the other week with a supply of cakes that put the Great British Bake Off Final to shame. Thanks to all the contributions – not only to the cake, but the Studio’s 6th iteration of the Adventures in Comics competition that explored the theme ‘Two Halves’. Great to see many faces from the past decade as we look forward to the next!

It’s been ten years since we moved the studio from London to Margate. Come and join us for an extraordinary First Friday, as we celebrate a decade by the sea at Marine Studios. To make things extra special we’ll be launching Adventures in Comics 6 – the latest in our ongoing series of comic challenges – a publication and exhibition at the studio.

We are delighted to announce that Adventures in Comics returns this year, as part of Marine Studios’ tenth anniversary celebrations. We are inviting submissions from comic creators worldwide, for the theme ‘The Two Halves’. We’ll be showcasing all the submissions in an exhibition here in Margate, launching on 1 November at our tenth birthday party. An expert judging panel will choose a selection of entries for publication. The Rules: The comic must be an original story based on the title ‘The Two Halves’ The comic must fit onto two pages of A4 paper – landscape or portrait. The comic must be submitted in PDF format to info@marinestudios.co.uk by Monday 30 September 2019. Entry is free to all. If you’re in need of inspiration, you can see previous submissions on the Adventures in Comics website. And don’t forget you can also check out the British Museum Manga exhibition and the newly opened Cartoon Museum.

Last Friday, we set up a bespoke game for the V&A Friday Late, with our GEEK hats on, called 'Tippoo or not Tippoo?' reflecting on their extraordinary collections. Visitors donned their respective object tabards and leapt on the board to discover unbelievable truths. With nearly 5000 people attending the 'All to Play For' Late, we were kept very busy! Thanks to the V&A for having us and everyone that came to play.

Great to hear about the exhibition we designed for Journey to Justice being discussed on Woman’s Hour as it opens at National Museums Liverpool today. www.bbc.co.uk/radio/play/m0000nnz *give it a listen www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/…/exhibitio…/journey-to-justice/ *go visit!

9 October at 18.30 – 20.30 Marine Studios, Margate Big thanks to everyone who made it down to our #FirstFriday at Marine Studios. Well done team for setting up our mini Museum of HKD. Saw new faces and old, or rather familiar. Great to hear Nikki from @discovery planet and we will have @alexnoblezine back! Thanks also @danthompson33

It was a real treat to visit the appropriately named ‘Shenzhen Stock Exchange Financial Museum’ that we’ve been working on this year at the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, which lives inside the OMA designed building. There are 200m2 of galleries taking you through the history of stock exchanges: Dutch and British East India companies, right up to date with China’s more recent Shanghai then Shenzhen. Well done team!

We were delighted to visit the WOW! (World of Wonders) gallery since it opened earlier this year. It was great to catch up with The Wilson team and hear about all the positive interaction from under 5s and beyond. WOW! was a particularly exciting gallery for us to work on. Over twenty years experience allowed for our ideas to do with learning, play, games within a museum setting to come to a head with The Wilson curatorial team bravely agreeing with our suggestions to get rid of labels and allowing for many of the objects to form part of a new handling collection. More information on this project will follow.